Davis keeps spirit of feminist Gilman alive

In the second lecture of the Department of English’s Scholarly Speaker Series at Western Michigan University, Cynthia Davis, Ph.D., from the University of South Carolina provided her audience with an engaging talk on a unique woman. On Oct. 1, Davis presented her lecture “The World was Home for Me: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Sentimental Public Sphere.”

(Chyn Wey Lee/Western Herald) Prof. Cynthia Davis, Department of English undergraduate director from the University of South Carolina speaks about Charlotte Perkins Gilman in Brown Hall on Thursday, Oct. 1.

The lecture, titled partially after one of Gilman’s poems, provided insight into the hardship, failure, and perseverance of her life. Davis said that during the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, Gilman was unlike many women of her time. She was not only a feminist, but also a humanitarian vocalizing to the nation that serving the world as a whole would lead to less corruption.

Davis explained that coming from a past of traumatic personal experiences, Gilman centered her life on ways to move people, especially women from the “private sphere to the public sphere” which meant to transfer the focus from domesticated life where she believed selfishness was bred, to the public where the time and effort of individuals was needed. According to Gilman, selfishness was the reason for society’s mistakes.

During the progressive era, women started to become more independent and focused on their rights. Gilman supported women’s rights by advocating for women to transfer from domesticity to society; however, Davis noted that Gilman felt that the newly gained independence was leading to self-absorption.

Davis continued on with successes of Charlotte Gilman, and how she first received acknowledgement as a “conventional sentimentalist” through her speeches given in California, receiving attention from more than just Americans.  “America has… many able women who have undertaken a crusade on behalf of their sex… but rarely one so gifted with oratorical power as Charlotte Perkins Gilman,” stated The London Daily Graphic in a slide provided by Davis.

Not only was Gilman an orator but a poet and writer in her own right. Davis went on providing her audience with a brief insight into Gilman’s most famous and controversial story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” a gothic and chilling tale of a domesticated woman and noted that it was “a pure critique of domesticity.” Gilman once stated,

“I’m not a poet… I’m only a preacher whether on the platform or in print.”
The success from “The Yellow Wallpaper” was the least of Gilman’s concerns. “She could have been a great poet and writer, but reform was that much more important to her,” Davis said.

“Intellectual lectures are often very beneficial as they can offer new insight and perspectives into areas that may have otherwise remained unexplored by the average student,” WMU student David Zukowski said after attending Davis’s lecture.

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